Innovative Energy Recovery Strategies in the urban water cycle

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Currently. a transition is taking place in Europe towards an increasing awareness of the effects of our behavior on the environment. Instead of using fossil fuels. the focus slowly shifts towards minimizing energy consumption or using renewable sources of energy with the purpose to reduce carbon emissions. There is an enormous amount of energy within the urban water cycle that is ignored and lost. This can be illustrated by the following figures: municipal wastewater contains ten times the amount of energy needed for the treatment in wastewater treatment plants. On average. only 20% of the energy input in wastewater treatment is recovered energy; this means we are currently using only a small percentage of the available energy recovery potential. INNERS therefore. aims to approach the urban water cycle as a system that transports energy. Our main goal is to improve the energy balance of the urban water cycle by recovering the energy from all different parts within the urban water cycle and by promoting its re-use. The ultimate aim is to devise an urban water cycle that will be energy neutral or even an energy producer. The INNERS project will contribute to the EU climate policy demand to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to increase the use of currently unexploited renewable sources of energy. Also. a reduced energy demand contributes to lower energy costs and lower urban water cycle costs to the public. This strengthens the position of the urban communities with a more sustainable urban water cycle. Delivering improvement of the energy balance in the water cycle requires the development of new collaborations in North West Europe to transfer knowledge. Also. visible examples have to be developed to show the short and long term benefits. Our project set-up. with a mixture between research and implementation activities guarantees these demands in the most optimal way.

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